Anna Mehlin

“I played my first concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker as a student of the Orchestra Academy. The programme was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Sir Simon Rattle. There was only one rehearsal as it is a repertoire piece, then straight into the concert. I felt under enormous stress at first, but during the concert there was no room for any of that. I felt a pure energy that carried me through this monumental piece. I have rarely felt so free while playing.”

Anna Mehlin often went to sleep to the sound of her mother playing the violin when she was a child, so from early on she felt a close emotional connection to the sound of the instrument which, to her, always had something soothing and comforting about it. Her parents, both violinists in professional orchestras, hoped to persuade her to take up the harp, but Anna Mehlin had already fallen for the sound of the violin with its wealth of expressive possibilities.

She first studied under Friedemann Eichhorn at the Liszt School of Music Weimar, and later under Antje Weithaas at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin. She completed her training attending master classes with Mauricio Fuks, Joshua Bell, Mihaela Martin and Mark Kaplan. Her studies were supported by several grants, including from the German Foundation for Musical Life and the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz. A winner of several competitions, including the Artistic Merit Award from Indiana University and the “Grand Dominique” International Violin Competition, she gained her first orchestral experience in the youth symphony orchestra of the Tonhalle Dusseldorf and the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie.

In 2015, she joined the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Orchestra Academy where she was taught by Christian Stadelmann. In 2016, she successfully auditioned for a position in the second violin section, which she took up as of January 2017. In addition to being a nature lover and a keen walker, Anna Mehlin’s other hobbies include exhibition and museum visits, and cooking.
 

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If I were not a musician ...
Anna Mehlin tells of her second passion